Disaster Planning: The Basics TEAJF Statewide Grantee Meeting Houston July 20, 2006

Whats in a Name? Disaster Recovery Process for resuming business after a disruptive event which can include something as catastrophic as a hurricane or as relatively small as a computer virus. Business Continuity A more comprehensive approach to making sure you can keep making money or providing a service regardless of external events. More palatable term for many business executives. Terms are often married under the acronym BC/DR

Business Impact Analysis Identify the most crucial systems and processes. Analyze the effect an outage would have on your ability to perform the service. The more dependent the service performance is on the process, the more you will want to invest in a backup strategy for that process. A BIA helps set a restoration sequence.

Elements of the Plan Locating People Communication Establishing where they will go to work. Establishing what processes will be used so that employees can keep doing their jobs. Data preservation and management.

Write People into the Plan Plan MUST establish a process for locating and communicating with employees. Naturally, employees will put family first. Employees may be UNABLE to make it in. Or unable to make it OUT (safe and fed). Need a plan that does not require immediate assistance of employees local to the event. Counseling for the longer term: people are the business and their needs cant be ignored.

Body of the Disaster Plan Emergency information sheet Introduction to the plan Communication plan (or "telephone tree") Institution-wide collection priorities Prevention/protection strategy Checklist of pre-disaster actions Instructions for response and recovery:

Plan Appendices Recovery team members Collection priorities within departments, locations, and/or subject areas Checklists for prevention/protection inspections: extra copies of forms to be used. Resource lists Accounting information

Plan Appendices Response and recovery instructions Instructions for long-term rehabilitation Record-keeping forms Detailed building plans

Plan Appendices Insurance information Location of keys

Lessons from Nimda Virus Be Prepared. Plan as if your IT people will be unavailable. Prioritize. Pick your team carefully. Develop information-gathering templates. Have a well-defined communication plan. Know who your stars are. Manage user expectations. Remind users that there was life before the internet. Check the pulse of your staff.

Potential Pitfalls Inadequate planning for IT systems failures. Failure to bring the service side into the planning and testing of your recovery efforts. Failure to gain support from senior-level managers so that you have sufficient: Resources to implement and test plan Regular testing of plan Commitment to regularly update plan